Wednesday, March 7, 2007

The Accidental Nerd

All I am missing is a house full of cats....

So the other day I was looking through my secret goody bag…. wait. That sounds inappropriate. I am not in any way referring metaphorically, figuratively or suggestively to “my goodies” álà Ciara or “my milkshake” álà Kelis. I am talking about a literal, tangible collection of things that are good… Jeez….. okay so picture in your head a treasure chest like in Pirates of the Caribbean 1, but without the spooky Incan curse.. and without the gold… and without Jack Sparrow……..never mind…. the English language and all possible uses of poetic imagery are escaping me right now…just bare with me here.

I don’t like valentine’s day… I don’t enjoy celebrating most holidays considering how far removed most celebrations stray from acknowledging the holidays' true origins, but I am a collector. So, for one reason or another I have a box of valentines. ..Wait… Now that I think about it, I have several boxes of those little valentines that kids usually exchange in the 3rd grade. Yeah, I have like 5 different boxes of those. But I also have really nice hallmark cards. My favorite valentine’s card is about St. Valentine who was martyred. It always makes me smile… not the part about him being martyred, although religiously speaking I am supposed to rejoice at persecution… but I smile because for one whole day I now have a valid excuse to dress entirely in black, glare at everyone who looks remotely happy and cry all day...... .....

It just dawned on me that it might not be good that I take pleasure in things like that....moving on…

Occasionally I pull out this secret stash and enjoy the beauty of it all. Because someday in the not so distant future I will actually have a valentine to give these cards to and though it looks like I have a compulsive shopping problem, I honestly plan to celebrate valentine’s day every day which is why I bought multiple boxes of them the day after valentine’s day for $1.

I digress…… Oh.. so the other day I decided to put all my stamps in with my secret valentine stash. There were sheets of stamps in my desk, my car, by bag, at work etc and so I decided to put them all together. To my amazement and slight embarrassment I realized I had a stamp COLLECTION!!

Every now and then I would buy nice, colorful stamps and decide they were too pretty to use and set them aside. This apparently happened multiple times and Voilà a bona fide stamp collection. It was then that I realized why all my “matches” on eharmony were über nerds. I am sending out serious nerd vibes! Unintentionally I might add. Don’t get me wrong, über nerds need love too, I just never thought I had anything in common with them…. please…I know what you are thinking… why am I cruising the internet for a boyfriend and at the same time pledging my coolness… clearly I Am a nerd.

You know… all of this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary if I had pursued my original career plan- to become a mail carrier. If I was an employee of the postal service it wouldn’t seem odd at all for me to have extra stamps here and there. No one would make fun of my quarterly USPS Philatelic magazine. I wouldn’t be embarrassed when I told complete strangers about designs for upcoming stamps. And no one would think it was strange when I vented to them about one of my favorite stamps being discontinued. I wouldn’t even mind when coworkers came to me to buy stamps…. If I was a postal carrier it would be my job to do those things….

Basically, I am a nerd.

You would think that it wouldn’t come as a surprise to me. I guess I am in denial of my own very real and seemingly blatant nerd status.